Recording medical information is a vital part of health care services. These records are necessary for diagnosis, treatment, and further care. An individual's medical history is one of their most important types of record and as such it cannot be trusted to easily damaged documents. Paper files are useful but they are also archaic in nature. They take up a great deal of space, take longer to search for and utilize, and have a tendency to become worn and faded with time so that information is actually lost. The best thing for a medical practice is to switch to a modern EMR system. Electronic medical records systems, known as EMR, are less of a hassle to use, require less space, and are much easier to back up long term.

The greatest benefits of electronic medical records systems is the lowering of wait time. In the old days records had to be hand delivered either in person or through the mail. Once fax machines and e-mail arrived on the scenes the transfer of medical records increased greatly. However, there is still a great amount of wait time in some instances. With EMR systems the information can be access by anyone on a given network or with remote network access. This means that a doctor in Louisiana can instantly receive medical records for a patient that just moved from Oregon. There is no wait time and it will not require someone to actively send them the information. This is an excellent tool for emergency situations as well. An injured or sick individual may be unable to communicate and the only information that can be gathered will be from their ID, if they have such on them. Hospitals that are networked together will be able to transfer those records in a timely fashion.

An example would be an individual that is allergic to a standard medical treatment's primary active ingredient. They would be unable to communicate this. The on call emergency room staff might be able to readily diagnose the patient's condition. However, without those medical records the standard treatment may be administered simply due to the factor of time. The patient may die. With the benefits of electronic medical records for easy access all these medical professionals need to do is look the patient up on the shared network and they'll know the patient is allergic to their preferred treatment practice. They decide to utilize an alternative solution and the patient survives. This is only possible with the extreme speed of high-end EMR systems.

There are other excellent reasons to utilize electronic medical records systems. One of the better reasons to use such systems is increased legibility. It is often an often told joke that doctor's have indecipherable hand writing. While this is not always the case, the reality of the situation is that it is still a frequent issue. With EMR systems all information will be rendered into easily decipherable lettering. The only issue will be if someone created a typo when entering information. This is really no different than misspelling a hand written record, however. Human error will always be an issue.

Electronic medical records represent a possibility for globalization of medical history as well. While, most systems of this type operate through different software currently, there may come a point where a standardized system is accepted in many places. Paper records will never be able to compete with the speed, precision, and life saving potential of this type of software. It might seem crude to say it, but with greater life saving potential comes greater revenue. Electronic medical record systems are like money in the bank.